Community iftar meals welcome everyone to connect.

What are you going to eat for dinner tonight? If it feels too early in the day to think about the answer, no problem—it’s often in our culture that a meal is spontaneous. 

Sara Rubin here. Maybe, like me, you keep some options in the freezer for the nights when you’re out of ideas and you are hungry. Maybe sometimes you eat a meal absentmindedly, while watching TV or driving. It can be a non-event. 

This is part of why I loved reading Staff Writer Agata Popęda’s story in the Feb. 26 edition of the Weekly about iftar feasts, because dinner becomes quite the event. For people who have been fasting all day for Ramadan, it is on one level an act of nourishment—as Popęda reports, many people like to break their fast with sweet, energy-rich dates. For some of the people who cook, it reflects an act of preparation that took many hours or days to plan for, with grocery shopping, prepping and slow-cooking some favorite meals.

It’s also an act of gathering and participating in a community ritual. For her story, Popęda attended a Saturday night iftar at Islamic Society of Monterey County in Seaside. Anyone is welcome, she says, but adds, “If you don't know anyone, it can be a bit intimidating because it feels like you are crashing someone's wedding.” It was loud and full of conversations among friends and family members for whom iftar is a regular occurrence. 

There are at least three regular iftar dinners happening locally, at mosques in Seaside, Castroville and Salinas, each with their own favorite meals and their own vibe (some are quieter). All make the act of eating into something sacred. That’s part of what I like about fasting on the occasions that I do—in the absence of mindless eating, eating becomes mindful, that first bite something weighted with meaning and appreciation. 

This story about iftar is at once a story about flavors (biryani and kabsa and chorba feature prominently) and one about how we think about and relate to each other over food. Enjoy.